Smoking Room

This is not bad "nearly dogma film" about the sad life of the workers of an enterprise where it's been prohibited to smoke. With this argument, we get into lot of penuries they live. The best of the film is the oppressive environment that it creates, but, as worst think, I would say that I'm actually surprised about not hearing a word about the (as my opinion) obvious plagiarism to the theatre work "Después de la lluvia" ("After de rain") by Sergi Berbel, not mentioned, of course, on the credits.

This movie has several interesting sides. Recorded in digital video, it was produced under a low budget with good performers and was the first work of these directors with no prior experience, even in short movies (none that I have found, at least). The story presents the relationships amongst a group of workers in the Spanish headquarters of an American company. The non-smoking policy forces smokers to put up with smoking outside the facilities. This makes one of them take the initiative of lobbying for a smoking room. The campaign triggers a crisis among staff, revealing the frustrations and pathologies of working life, the envy, the relations of power and mainly the hipocresy and cinicism surrounding working life in corporate environments.

By focusing on the personalities of the different characters the film captures the essence of insolidarity belonging in competitive enivironments, the tragic lives of the underachievers and the extent to which ambition is able to run over moral values. The aparently simple subject of collecting signatures for a smoking room, becomes in this movie an epic adventure with unpredictable results. The story puts in question the working lives we lead and the ambitions that drive our western societies.

This movie was created with independent producers and has won with relevant awards. It is not only a superb film but one with a superb script and an imaginative artistical direction.

A combative office-worker is recollecting signatures. People are not allowed to smoke in the building, so he wants to ask the bosses to habilitate a smoking room. It seems logical and his colleagues praise the initiative. But actually what comes next reveals the fierce individualism, selfishness and cowardice that each one hide under their white collar.

"Smoking Room" is probably the best Spanish movie of the year: thought-provoking and filmed with coherence and style. The story is brought to images in a way that reminds me neorealism: the austerity of every shot, the claustrophobic atmosphere and the scrutiny of every actor face in extremely close-up is amazingly related with the content the films deals with and makes the whole picture ring so true to the viewer.

This has to be remarked while "Smoking Room" is a directorial film debut and both Gual and Wallovits come from the Advertisement business. One would have expect something more stylish, even superficial as a consequence of that, and instead Gual and Wallovits surprise us with a proof of talent that shows more coherence, bravery and sense of the "mise en scene" than any experimented director with a big budget to work with.

The screenplay, also written by Gual and Wallovits, begins with a simple action of an idealist worker. That's a simple but brilliant idea that permits the writers to focus on every character in a magistral way, with dialogues that may seem trivial but are rich in psychological meaning. As the minimum plot unfolds, the situation grows dark and tense. The characters show the worst of themselves and confront each other, but strangely enough, they don't appear as monsters: only like human beings, with all they misery and highness, too, as the end sequence of the film intends to remark.

As you may have guessed, in a film like this the cast performances are very important and in fact is impossible to review "Smoking Room" without referring to the enormous talent of every actor in the cast. They are simply superb, extraordinary believable. And not only that, they have proved to be great professionals as they starred in this film almost without receiving any money in return. And I can assure you they are not beginners.

Strongly recommended!

I give this movie 10 out of 10 and I will explain why. The actors'work is first rate , outstanding performances . Some great Spanish actors are in it like Juan Diego (Javier Bardem called him his idol so go figure ..), Eduard Fernandez (an excellent performer) , Antonio Dechent and others. This film received the Spanish Goya award for best new director , the Malaga Film Festival gave the award of best screenplay , best performance of a group of actors and the Jury prize to this film . The most important thing in this film is not the question if somebody can have a smoking room in a business ofice. The interesting thing about this film are the moral issues .The dialogue is so inspired that it is almost unbelievable. Maybe this is not a masterpiece but it will make you think after you watch it.

As films from Spain go, this picture was somewhat different in that it has nothing to do with the Civil War. On the other hand, it is definitely anti-American in that the new owners of the company are Americans. In Spain, as the rest of Europe, businesses are multi-national. The writers would like us to believe that no French, Italian, German, or Swedish companies impose that restriction on their employees, as it is the case with this American firm that obviously has taken over the former Spanish one.

The fact that the company has been bought by Yankees comes in the course of the conversations among the different people that work there. The sore point for these people is that suddenly they can't smoke inside their cubicles and must either go to the roof, or outside, even when the weather is windy and cold. The underlining factor is the hate all feel for the new owners and how these new people can't understand the culture of Spain. How dare they impose those rules. They won't take it. Multi-nationals can be heartless, or so it seems.

This film has the distinction that it's directed not by one director, but by two, Gual and Wallovits, who co-wrote the on the script, according to the credits.

The interesting thing about the film is that is photographed in closeups and the face of the actors register the emotions at all times. It's very difficult to fake acting when the camera lens is on you. All the actors do a decent job in portraying these office workers, which we assumed is an accounting firm.

All they want is a smoking room in which they can smoke freely, but it is not going to happen. At the end, all the friends are against the one that can't get on with the program. The others are hypocrites and the one that keeps at it finds himself the victim of the others' hatred.

The best part is the length, about 90 minutes, although the program said 117 minutes from which 27 were mercifully cut and it gives a different pace to the film.